


Prince and the Pauper

by laidellennt



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: /Akira because Prince Keith is Akira, Angst, Fluff, Kidnapping, M/M, Pauper Keith, Prince Keith (Voltron), Prince Lance (Voltron), Princess and the Pauper AU, the ol' switch a roo, yes this is based off of the barbie movie
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-27
Updated: 2017-11-27
Packaged: 2019-02-07 09:24:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12838194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laidellennt/pseuds/laidellennt
Summary: Akira is the prince of Marmora, a smaller kingdom with a weak economy. The Queen decides that the only way to save her failing kingdom is to marry Akira off to the prince of the neighboring, prosperous kingdom of Altea. Akira doesn’t want to marry, instead, he wants to be free from his royal duties and make choices for himself.Keith is an orphaned pauper working for candle maker to pay off his parents' debts. He wishes to be free from his debts and become a sailor.When the two discover they're almost identical, the prince becomes the pauper and pauper becomes the prince. Well, that was the plan anyway, but nothing ever really goes right for either of them. They should know this by now.





	Prince and the Pauper

Akira sighs when the seamstress pricks his waist with a pin for the fifth time. “Sorry, Your Highness,” she mumbles, pulling the tape measure down the length of his legs. Akira tries to breathe in the constricting suit.

 

                Shiro tuts from his right. “We’re running late,” he begins, tracing a schedule list with his finger. “You’ve have a speech for the Historical Society in thirty minutes, and after that is the Horticultural Society Tea, your science lessons, math lessons, English lessons...” Shiro sends a pointed look to the seamstress, who fumbles to roll the tape measure and pack her things away in her case. Akira sheds the formal suit and puts on the suit Shiro laid out for his speech.

 

                “Thank you,” Akira says to the women as she squeezes through the door, but he isn’t sure she heard him. “and thank you Shiro. Did you perhaps...” The prince clears his throat, blushing and staring at himself in the mirror to avoid Shiro’s dark gaze.

 

                “Write the speech? Of course I did, Your Highness.” Shiro teases and brandishes a sheet of paper, covered in neat print with fancy words Akira is sure will impress the meeting.

 

                “Ah, thank you, Shiro,” Akira breathes, scanning over the paper. “I’m not sure what I’d do without you.” He follows his secretary out of the dressing room and downstairs to the main hall, head bowed over the paper the entire time. Shiro steers him out of the way of bumps in rugs or sculptures.

 

                When they get there, a few maids are coming through the door with boxes tied with silk bows cradled in each of their arms. When they spot the prince, they smile sheepishly. Akira feels a familiar ache in his temple.

 

                “More gifts from Prince Lance,” Akira’s mother, Queen Honerva, coos. Her heels click against the floor and she struts over to stand next to her son. “How sweet of the gentleman.”

 

                “Indeed,” Akira grumbles, burning holes  into the gifts with his glares.

 

                “Aren’t you going to open them, dear?”

 

                “No.” They can join the ever growing pile that he still hasn’t opened. Akira goes to walk out, but his mother glares.

 

                “Akira, I’m sorry my darling,” Honerva says. “but you must marry Prince Lance. It’s the only way-“

 

                “-to save Marmora and its people. It’s my duty,” Akira finishes, a far-away look in his eyes.

 

                “I’m glad you understand.” Honerva leaves, trailed by her advisor Zarkon. He stares at Akira, refusing to break eye contact even as he begins to climb the stairs so Akira breaks away and hurries out of the door ,shaking his head.

 

                Akira and Shiro climb into the awaiting carriage and begin to rumble out of the palace gates. Akira abandons the task of memorizing the speech for the views of the rolling mountain side. Green grass and the colorful autumn leaves of trees cover the uneven ground, meeting the great blue of endless sky in a clash of color. Ponds and rivers glisten in the warm sunlight, surfaces rippling from the wind rolling off the mountains. Akira imagines having a little cabin nestled in a valley, a pond he could fish in nearby, a farm he could work in all day long, and a heady horse waiting for him to mount and explore the ever stretching country side and awaiting land he’s yet to see. Somewhere all for himself, with no lessons, speeches, meetings, Lords, or arranged marriages he’s forced into to save his kingdom’s failing economy.  He glances at Shiro.

 

                “What would it be like to be free?”

 

                Shiro startles in the seat across from him. “Pardon?”

 

                “I’m  going to be royal forever,” Akira clarifies, rubbing his hands on his pants. “and I don’t want that. It sounds ungrateful of me to complain that I’m so gifted. If I want someone to rub my feet, I ring a  bell and someone comes running. Not everyone has that, especially not in Marmora, but I can’t help but feel...unsatisfied. I feel like I can’t be myself- I’m forced to be the prince everyone expects, the prince my mother wants. I want to, I don’t know, dive off a cliff or see a whale.” Akira takes a shaky breath to steady himself. “But I’m stuck here, with a duty to ‘my people,’ a marriage to a prince I don’t know. None of which I asked for.”

 

                “Duty means doing the things your heart may well regret,” Shiro offers after a beat of silence.

 

                That’s not what Akira wants to hear. He figured if anyone could understand, it’d be Shiro. He thrums his fingers along the arm rest. “Shiro, could you take me into town one day? For me to do anything, really. I want- I want to taste freedom. Just once.”

 

                Shiro eyes Akira for a moment , before nodding and glancing aside. “Of course, Your Highness. Your wish is my command.”

 

                “I wish I was free,” Akira says.

 

                “A command within my limits. I’m no fairy godmother, Your Highness.”

 

                “Naturally. But thank you, Shiro.”  Akira turns and watches the clouds dance.

 

~*~

                Keith hisses after he burns his finger on the hot wax tin for the fifth time that day. He really needs new gloves.

 

                He pours the wax into the molds, setting the tray to cool and the candles to form. He cleans the tin and gathers the materials to start the next batch. As he passes the window next to the furnace, he spots the colorful banners being strung by people on ladders, flowers pots lined along shops and street sides, and vendors setting up their spot in the square. Children are dancing in the square, throwing petals onto one another in mock of the real celebration that’s taking place next week. It’s a long lived tradition in Marmora to honor the harvest of the past summer and to prepare for the coming winter.

 

                The last time Keith went, he was 11. His father danced with him, twirling him around and around until he got dizzy and couldn’t breathe from giggling. His mother braided petals into his hair and he plucked a bouquet for her. He was mistaken for a girl by the butcher’s son, but Keith didn’t mind so he danced with the boy anyway.

 

                The next year Keith was working at the candle shop to pay off his dead parents’ debt when he didn’t even understand what a debt was. He had watched from the same window, distracted, and spilled wax all over his right foot. Zethrid had yelled at him and refused to give him water to soak the burn despite his wails. Keith hasn’t been to or watched the festival since.

 

                His shoulders were beginning to ache by the time the wax had all melted into the tin. Zethrid had been working him double ever since the quintessent mines had been milked for all their worth, leaving the economy in shambles. This would be great, except Keith was giving basically all he earned back to Zethrid. The bakery he’d been getting the scraps he ate from had closed because the owner had lost business and was wallowing in debt and the shoe maker had to chase Keith out so he’d have a room for his newborn baby. Zethrid let Keith eat what went stale and let him sleep in the storage room next to the fat, all for double the price he was paying before.

 

                To put it short, Keith was utterly screwed.

 

                After pouring the wax into the last tray he had left, he settled onto an old wooden chair that groaned under his weight. He rubbed his face in his hands and ran a hand through his greasy hair. When was the last time he showered?

 

                His head whipped up when he heard the stairs creaking. Zethrid glared from the staircase, a beefy hand gripping the rail and the other holding her dress. “I’m not paying you to stand around and look pretty,” she growled. Keith stood to his feet.

 

                “You’re hardly paying me at all,” Keith mumbles, but picks up a wedge to scrape the scraps off the bottoms of the furnace.

 

                “Keep laughing,” Zethrid sneers by the door. Of course she heard that, the woman’s ears stick half a mile off of her head. “You’ll be working for me for another 30 years.”

 

                “I’ve paid off more than half already!” Keith protests, staring at her in disbelief. He’d rather die than be stuck here for any more than 5 more years. As if Zethrid could live another 30 years anyway.

 

                “But there’s an interest, isn’t there?” Zethrid smirks, popping open her parasol. “Your parents should have thought of that before they borrowed so much.”

 

                “They did it to _feed_ me!” Keith growls and stabs at a stubborn lump of wax, pretending it’s Zethrid’s neck.

 

                “Their mistake.” Zethrid slams the door on the way out.

 

                Keith lays his head against the stone of the furnace and wills the tears away. He thinks of the endless ocean, the feeling of the ship rocking over the heavy waves that crash like symbols and spray the salty water high onto Keith’s face. He imagines the chatter of gulls that circle overhead, picking off fish from the ocean and trying to get the ones caught in the net. He imagines the din of the other sailors aboard, who clap Keith’s back as they pass by, rum swirling in their cup and hearty laughs ringing across the deck. He imagines spotting a whale fluke rise from the water and the powerful push as it dives beneath the water, the chitter of a passing dolphin pod, a rare pointed fin stretch from the water. Perhaps he’ll discover the mythic Sirens, or the fearsome sea monsters his father used to tell stories about.

 

                Soon he’d be free to sail the world’s ocean. Soon to live his life free of work every day, free of an endless debt, and free of the haunting ghost of his parents. He’ll leave this kingdom and this life, trading it for the open sea and smell of brine.

 

                Keith stares out of the window again, letting a smile grace his face as he watched the children tumble around the square.

 

                Miles away, Akira stares out of his window and lets a smile grace his face as he watches a fawn tumble behind his mother in a flowering field.

 

                One day, they’ll be forever free.

 

               

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> uhhh haha
> 
> "hey laidellennt dont you have two multi chaptered fics you have yet to finish"
> 
> ummm writing machine broke
> 
> no sorry i dont actually have an explanation LOL. sorry if you hate me for this but!! this is based off of the old barbie movie Princess and the Pauper and the book Prince and the Pauper but mostly barbie because that was my childhood so i wanted to combine two of my favorite things so here this fic is. 
> 
> I AM A GIRL LIKE YOUUU~
> 
> if you havent watched the movie please do it's absolutely amazing and the soundtrack is a bop. all the chapter titles will be named after the songs and I will be directly quoting the movie fnffnf. if you have watched it, Akira is Annalise and Keith is Erika (who's my favorite. BRUNETTES RULE.)
> 
> Thank you for reading! ♥ Love youuu


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